A vote for Canders

November will provide a great opportunity to elect Republican Sam Canders to the State House.

We need leaders who will listen to their constituents and who have the courage to stand up and defend our rights. As a resident of District 15 and someone who has witnessed Canders’ leadership abilities firsthand, I am convinced that he will serve us well.

Steve Carey

Bangor

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Will the real Mitt Romney please stand up

Who is the real Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney? We have seen so many versions, it is hard to know. The lasting impression is of a man who has lost his bearings, who like a chameleon takes on the coloration of those around him but has no moral compass of his own.

Is that the quality we want or need in a leader?

Michael McMillen

Brooksville

Thank you, President Obama

Seeing through rhetoric from our current political setting, the president and his administration are the first of either party to self-initiate a trade case against China and its lawless trade policies.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has only called Chinese trade violations petty names. The president also has been busy with a World Trade Organization case that holds China accountable for violating trade laws on auto manufacturing.

This has resulted in real job opportunities in the pipe and tube industry, the tire industry, steel, paper and now auto. There is a whole lot more to be done.

Regardless if you will be supporting the president in November, it doesn’t hurt to take time out and recognize real actions that help real people.

Bruce Bryant

Former Democratic state senator

Dixfield

Keep Maine traditions, vote no

Maine, vacationland, the way life should be. Maine is a land of tradition. It’s a tradition to catch one of the pink-fleshed trout from the Sourdnahunk or a Brookie from the Molunkus.

It’s a Maine tradition to hear the clunk of the lobster boats as they check their traps off Vinalhaven or Boothbay Harbor. It’s a Maine tradition to honor a potato blossom, a whoopie pie, a drink called Moxie and Bangor Taffee.

It’s a Maine tradition to go to Bar Harbor in the summer, the Ski Tow in the winter, the hunting camp in the fall and enjoy mud season in the spring. It’s a Maine tradition to refer to the highest point of land in Maine as “the Mountain,” to be the state that enjoys being the first place the sun hits every morning in the United States.

Now we are asked to throw our traditions away by being the first state to decide by referendum to unite two people of the same sex in holy matrimony. Please honor the traditions of the great state of Maine by voting “no” on Question 1 and once again vote down this nontraditional union of two individuals of the same sex.

Rev. Stephen J. Nissley

Sherman

Marriage lifestyles

I read with interest Suzanne Carver’s Oct. 9 OpEd, which had me shaking my head in disbelief about the common misconception there seem to be from advocates of same-sex marriage regarding those who support traditional marriage.

To be clear, nobody I know feels that those engaged in alternative lifestyles are a personal threat. We don’t go around fearing what a practicing homosexual or practicing lesbian will personally do to us.

What is a threat is the ideology that seems to be foisted upon us to change one of mankind’s most revered institutions.

The singular intentions of a politically aggressive few to force our society to compromise a long-held value is the real threat, one that many of us take very seriously. The expectation that our society ought to compromise its collective conscience with regard to this group’s desire to redefine the institution of marriage I find as equally intolerable as they do our own beliefs about the lifestyle. This attitude smacks of arrogance and hypocrisy.

If civil unions cannot fix the legal problems of the partnership of same-sex couples, then we need to work to make it happen, but we must not change the most basic and essential definition of marriage simply because one group wishes to force complete acceptance upon an unwilling society whose members, both religious and nonreligious find morally wrong.

Ralph Ackley

Machias

Curb Farnham

In her first term in the Maine State, Republican Nichi Farnham, who represents Bangor and Hermon, voted to end Maine’s 38-year policy of same-day voter registration. In this she was a leader, not a mere follower, of the efforts by right-wing Republicans in Maine and in other states like Ohio and Wisconsin.

Unlike most of her fellow legislators, however, Farnham has in her district hundreds, maybe thousands, of students, many of whom would have been affected by this avowedly anti-democratic law that, once passed, was decisively overturned by referendum. I hope that my fellow citizens in the good senator’s district, not least of all students at Husson and the University of Maine in Bangor, keep this in mind as they choose between Farnham and Democrat Geoffrey Gratwick, who would never embrace restrictions on potential voters.

Howard Segal

Bangor

Schneck can make a difference

It is wonderful when someone with varied experiences in the private sector offers to serve in the Maine Legislature.

A seasoned businessman and military veteran with a great love of the outdoors and an optimist’s view of life, Democrat John Schneck is someone you can count on for an honest opinion and a true desire to serve all the people.

Schneck has run a small business, worked in radio news, volunteered in his community and raised a family here. His first campaign for public office has been a true family affair, his wife Mary accompanying him on his many forays into the neighborhoods of the district.

I have no doubt that Schneck will stand up for the middle class in the Maine House of Representatives, that he will bring a healthy private sector perspective and very solid values to bear on all the complex issues facing our state.

No person can change Augusta alone, but a person like Schneck can truly make a difference.

I urge Bangor voters in District 16 to elect Schneck to the House of Representatives.